Taoiseach tipped to counter Sinn Féin's Seanad selection with unionist pick 

It has been suggested Micheál Martin will appoint Ian Marshall to counteract Sinn Féin’s candidate Conor Murphy, who the party has put forward to represent Northern nationalists

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has strongly indicated that women will feature strongly on his selected list, after he was criticised for the low number of females chosen among his Cabinet and Junior ministerial ranks. Picture: Sam Boal/Collins

Ulster unionist Ian Marshall is to be appointed by the Taoiseach to the Seanad in a bid to counter Sinn Féin’s selection for the upper house.

Mr Marshall, who served in the Seanad between 2018 and 2020, is expected to be joined by former Fine Gael TD Noel Rock. Both men are tipped to be among the Taoiseach's 11 nominations.

However, Micheál Martin has strongly indicated that women will feature strongly on his selected list, after he was criticised for the low number of females chosen among his Cabinet and Junior ministerial ranks.

It has been suggested that the Taoiseach will appoint Mr Marshall, a farmer and academic based in Queen’s University Belfast, to counteract Sinn Féin’s candidate Conor Murphy, who the party has put forward to represent Northern nationalists.

Counting got underway for the two university panels on Wednesday, with the five Independent incumbents leading the way in both the National University of Ireland (NUI) panel and the Dublin University/Trinity College panel. Each panel will elect three senators to fill six seats in the Seanad.

With the tally completed for NUI, figures show Michael McDowell leading the way with 31%, followed by Rónán Mullen at 22% and Mary Alice Higgins at 18%, indicating there is unlikely to be a change in the make-up of this panel. With a quota of 25%, Mr McDowell is set to be elected on the first count.

Similarly, incumbents Lynn Ruane and Tom Clonan performed well as the tally continued into Wednesday night, with candidates battling it out to claim the seat vacated by David Norris on his retirement last year.

The tally at Trinity College showed Ms Ruane had 21% with Mr Clonan close behind with 19%. Fighting it out for third are Aubrey McCarthy (10%) and Hugo McNeill (9%). The two Green Party candidates are neck-and-neck at 7%, and remain in contention for the third seat.

There was a turnout of around 30% for the NUI panel and 23% for the Trinity.

The NUI count taking place in the RDS hit a minor speed bump when the automatic opening machine that was cutting open the envelopes was found to have sliced some of the ballots.

It was quickly flagged and the returning officer instructed counters to carefully take out any of the affected ballots and put them back together with sellotape. The error caused little disruption to the counting. This was the first time such machines have been used, but it is hoped that they will be rolled out for the next Seanad election.

Both panels will continue counting on Thursday while the counts for the five vocational panels will also begin.